'Global South must become rule-shapers, not rule-takers.' Discuss this statement in light of recent BRICS Summit outcomes.

A "rule-taker" is a state that must comply with global norms framed without its participation. At the 18th BRICS Summit (Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, 12–13 September 2026) [1][3], the Prime Minister argued that the Global South must move from accepting such rules to writing them — a demand grounded in measurable institutional asymmetry.

Why the Global South remains a rule-taker

• Security: the UN Security Council has no permanent seat for Africa or Latin America; the G-4 model proposing expansion from 15 to 25 members remains unadopted after two decades [4].
• Finance: the IMF's 16th General Review of Quotas (2023) raised quotas equi-proportionally but deferred the promised quota-share realignment toward emerging economies to the 17th Review [5].
• Technology: norms for AI, cyberspace, outer space and biotechnology are crystallising largely without developing-country authorship.

How the Summit outcomes advance rule-shaping

• The Prime Minister proposed 10 global governance reform proposals, to be consolidated into a "BRICS Reform Road Map" by the next Summit — shifting the grouping from declaratory consensus toward a tracked agenda [1][2].
• The Delhi Declaration reiterated UNSC and international financial institution reform as a collective BRICS position, not an isolated Indian ask [2].
• Functional rule-making is already visible: the proposed Seafarers' Emergency Support Network [1], and the New Development Bank, whose expanded membership and local-currency lending offer an alternative financing template [6].

Limits to the claim

• BRICS has no enforcement capacity; UNSC reform still requires P-5 concurrence.
• Internal divergences — India–China rivalry, sanctions politics — dilute a single Global South voice, and the reform pledges of the 2021 New Delhi Declaration saw limited structural follow-through [7].

The Summit thus marks the Global South acquiring agenda-setting capacity even where decision-making power still eludes it. Institutionalising the Road Map with measurable timelines, and coupling it with coalitions such as the G-4 and the Voice of Global South platform, can convert a moral claim into negotiating leverage — realising the SDG-16 commitment to inclusive and representative global institutions.